Convicted of his wife's murder in 1986, Michael Morton spent 25 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence.

Convicted of his wife's murder in 1986, Michael Morton spent 25 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence.

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Exoneree's 25-year prison odyssey

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SAN ANTONIO — On one of the 25 Christmases he spent in prison, Michael Morton received the best gift of his life — a cheap, all-plastic typewriter, with nothing even the most inventive inmate could fashion into a weapon.

He pounded on the rickety machine for hours, crafting fiction, writing legal documents and tapping out a 1,000-page prison journal. The memoir Morton fashioned in his cell — “Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey From Prison to Peace,” out Tuesday — is a jarring testament that truth really can be stranger than fiction.

After serving two-and-a-half decades behind bars for the 1986 murder of his wife — a crime he did not commit — Morton has been the subject of a documentary, several media profiles and hours of TV talk-time. His story — a Texas story, out of Williamson County, north of Austin — attracted national attention.

With “Getting Life,” Morton takes his horrifying experience into his own hands, something he said carried none of the anxiousness he has felt in the past when he was interviewed.

“With this, there was no anxiousness — there was responsibility,” Morton said in a telephone interview.

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In his account Morton details the arc of his life — from meeting his wife, Christine, at Sam Houston State University to the day of her murder and all the way through his exoneration.

On Aug. 13, 1986, Christine was beaten to death in her bed. The Mortons' son, Eric, who was 3 at the time, looked on. Williamson County law enforcement squared Michael in its sights and never looked in any other direction. Months later, Michael began a life sentence and an odyssey of isolation, estrangement and finally, freedom.

Morton was exonerated in 2011, due in large part to the emergence of DNA testing and the work of the New York-based Innocence Project and a cadre of lawyers, including Houston attorney John Raley. Morton's advocates unearthed evidence that local police and the prosecution illegally withheld.

Among that evidence: A bloody bandana, ripe with DNA that would clear Morton and bag the real killer, Mark Alan Norwood of Bastrop. Norwood was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison.

“Getting Life” represents just one facet of Morton's advocacy for accountability for prosecutors. He also makes public appearances, including a recent speaking engagement in San Antonio at a conference for defense attorneys.

In 2013, Gov. Rick Perry signed into law Texas Senate Bill 1611, known as the Michael Morton Act, designed to facilitate a more open discovery process.

Morton began the writing process with the unenviable task of compressing his life into a publishable volume. With the memoir, he learned, unlike fiction, “you're restricted by the truth.”

Morton says residue of “such a cataclysmic event” will always be a part of him, but perhaps not in the way one might think.

“This new chapter in my life, while a lot of it is based on my past and the things I went through, it's difficult sometimes for outsiders to see that that's not my every moment,” Morton said. “My day-in-day-out existence isn't really about that anymore.”

With what he calls a “hypersensitive appreciation” for freedom, Morton seems lively and confident.

Now remarried, Morton contents himself these days with simpler pleasures like getting his hands dirty in the yard and fishing at his lakeside home.

“I wake up early and take coffee on the deck and I watch things come alive,” Morton said. “I appreciate the little things. It's a joy to hear birds singing and to hear squirrels barking. I don't know if I'll ever get tired of it.”